A little late, but I'm having trouble sleeping, so here are my thoughts:
1. Defense is legit. The second half was an incredible effort after some gaffes in the first quarter (tackling...), but holding Clemson to 24 points is all you can ask for. Tim Settle is a man among boys. Adonis was disappointing and Mook was severely shook the first half but he bounced back nicely in the second.
2. Offense is not ready for primetime. They're just too young. I thought JJ did pretty well all things considered, the pick 6 wasn't his fault. Cam was decent but tries too hard to juke around defenders rather than barreling in for a few extra yards. Savoy was good. Rest of the receiving corp aren't ready this season yet. Travon has hit his ceiling and it's disappointing seeing that he hasn't fixed his fumbling issues. That really punched the air out of us. Coleman Fox has huge potential and I hope we see more of him going forward.
3. I'm not sold on Cornelsen. There were some severely questionable playcalls throughout. Why try the QB draw repeatedly if it never worked? Why abandon the pass in the redzone and get cute with the WR pass and screen? Why try a fake field goal instead of playing a regular snap? Couple that with slow starts in all of our games this season (and a bunch last season) and I think that something serious needs to change in our approach if we want to compete at a high level.
4. Offensive Line was really impressive. The Clemson DL is probably the best in the country and they took it in their stride and gave JJ a clean pocket for most of the night. Well done.
5. Joey Slye. What's happened man. It's sad to see we can't rely on him anymore. I really hope he gets rid of his demons soon otherwise we won't be winning close games.
6. We have a looooong way to go to get back to the top of the ACC. Not only has the conference as a whole improved the past ten years but Clemson and FSU are playing at levels that the conference hasn't seen in a very long time. Prime 2003-2010 VT would struggle against Clemson and FSU today. The Tigers were bigger, faster and more disciplined than us. We did pretty well all things considered however this is an eye opener to how much work we have to do on the field and in recruiting to compete with these guys, but we are definitely moving in the right direction.
Comments
Fsu is 1-2 and the only 3 things I want from this season are Virginia Tech beating uva 69-0 pimp smack the FUCK out of Miami for the second year in a row and going to a NY6 bowl
Ugh.... All I can say is I wish we had recruited better during the Beamer years.
Fuente is a fantastic coach way ahead of schedule but, man the talent difference is clear. Lots of inexperience too. So much room to grow despite being in a great spot. I have very high hopes for this team
IMO, Beamer squandered the recruiting up-tick we got from the 1999 BCS NC appearance (you know, our top-5-defense-3-years-in-a-row years). Now we're left out compared to the top tier programs.
With Youtube, Twitter, FaceBook, SnapChat, Instagram, etc. today, we won't luck into another once-in-a-lifetime player like Michael Vick.
Bud can only do so much, same with Cornelsen. Maybe with an outsize serving of luck and hard-work and maybe...
Or to put it another way, do you ever see Pitt, Syracuse, or Minnesota being contenders for another NC?
Sorry for being so negative, but Saturday night was that wake-up call for me.
Agree with above. This was about talent, not Cornelson. It is a lot harder to call plays when down by 10 and much easier to call plays when winning by 10(+).
Addressing the designed QB draws, they seemed like horrible calls live, when JJ kept running straight into a brick wall. But upon replay, there were HUGE holes AND a lead blocker on at least two of them. One of the QB Draws had a cutback lane (or it was the primary hole and JJ completely missed it) in which Wyatt Teller pulled and ran 10 yards before he encountered a Clemson defender at the second level. If JJ hits that hole, it's going for at least 10yds and maybe 20 or more.
Our OC has a really tough situation this year with all the talent lost, losing Farley right before the season, and not having a trusty stud RB nor Jerod-type running threat at QB. I think we have seen progress in Jackson each week, but may have seen a natural little set back, or maybe just a highlight on the fact that he's a freshman. He clearly doesn't have the same RPO responsibilities that they gave Jerod last year.... and that hurts this system until he can handle all that as well. But the kid is a freshman, with a lot of guys who are still learning around him.
A few years ago this win may have stung more than it does for me right now; and that's because the change in trajectory of our program. Hokies lost to the defending national champs, and due to our 4-0 start we landed Gameday for a game we were supposed to lose anyway. We lost by less than UNC lost to Georgia Tech. The future is still bright, and the major goals for this season are still attainable (Coastal Champs, and possibly a 2nd straight 10-win season, including the bowl)
I too also concur, though I think FuCo saw that the D was playing soft at the line (relative to Clemson) and were doing what they could to put the youngin's in decent situations.
I think moreso, on the recruit side of things (and I believe it to be happening slowly) that 3* vs 5* and you know who wins. We'll see them again...
How much more $$$ do we have to throw at this thing in order to get at least 1 W vs Dabo? Seriously, forget the MNC. Now all I want is an improved record against top 10/5 teams and just 1 W against Dabo. Just 1.
For some reason this comment kind of reminds of when squidward first tasted a krabby patty
You say "more" as if our Hokie Club numbers have been skyrocketing...
Well there has to at least been some kind of improvement since last season. I'm not saying astronomical, but some kind of upward trend.
Massive improvement with turnovers.
Well I guess as long as the new ones are sticking around. Gotta focus and build off the positive. Success is typically a mindset before a skill set.
Good point. I have been very critical of our slow offensive start (against Delaware and ODU) but we should also recognize we contribute in amazingly low numbers vs. our competition. I recently donated $250. It's not much but it's better than nothing.
Well... It's maybe a little about Cornelson though I would not say that conclusion should be drawn from this game alone. We have had incredibly slow starts against some pretty bad teams. We never seem to make adjustments before the half. That would indicate Fuente is making the adjustments.
Fuente admitted we didn't have a game plan for the way Clemson's defense played.
"They played us differently than they've played before," Fuente said. "They were usually an aggressive, attacking defense. They did not do that today. They played more 50-defense (five defensive linemen, two linebackers), more four-techniques than they had ever shown, dropping more guys. But we knew that we would still have to get the ball out quick, and run some screens, some misdirection, that sort of stuff. We knew that sledding was going to be difficult, no matter what they lined up."
It seems the offensive game plan is pretty much set before the game and Cornelson is picking and choosing plays from the plan based on what he sees on the field; but from what I can tell is not making adjustments or altering the game plan based on conditions on the field. He's almost like a booth bound QB calling down the plays from the set of available plays.
I think Venables is onto us. He knew that our game plan could only evolve so much based on the fact that adjustments are only made after the half. The key to defeating tech defensively is to have a two half strategy based on things you have not shown on film before. You reveal part of it in the first half knowing adjustments will be made by Fuente and then you reveal the other part in the second half after the adjustments are made.
The good news we probably won't face a DC like Venables again unless we run the table.
Have you noticed that every team has play sheets? The OC can only call plays the team knows. It's not like he can make up a play while the team is in the huddle and have them execute it. Literally no team does that (except Aaron Rodgers against Dallas).
The OC can alter plays all the time and the best ones do that much the same way Bud Foster does on defense. Justin Fuente clearly does that at half time otherwise you wouldn't see the Jekyll and Hyde performances from our offense. The question is who is capable of making those adjustments and when can they make them? Fuente (yes I know he's the head coach) is capable and makes them at half time. Other OC's make them as the game progresses. It's not a matter of calling a new play the team doesn't know. That's like suggesting every play is some completely new invention of any combination of things 11 guys can do. That's not the case. There are clearly constraints on what members of the offense can do. Five down linemen. Seven men on the line of scrimmage. Eligible vs. Ineligible receivers. But if you want me to believe that other teams don't make adjustments like telling their running back mid Q1 that in play A5, look to your left for the DE before you try and hit the A gap; you got another thing coming. Or even something like calling down that when the defense is in X formation with Y person doing Z action the left tackle should step deeper to the left and pick up Q player. That is not inventing plays in the huddle. Which brings up another point. I'm not sure I have ever seen an offensive coordinator in the huddle. That sounds like a bad substitution at best and a violation of the 11 man limit at worse. So yes. I have noticed that every team has play sheets. I've also noticed that the ones that contend can make adjustments throughout the game. But again. The question is what is our goal and who do we want to be? If we want to be the perennial penultimate ACC Champion then making no offensive adjustments other than at half time will do. In general I completely reject your supposition that both sides of ball must be static in terms of plans. For the best teams they are not.
There were a couple of times when JJ was going to the sideline for the play call. I'm wondering if Fuente was making the play call or maybe something was wrong when it came to giving out signals.
Been wondering about this, and hope someone who knows will explain.
Judging from the small sample size of this season Venables is onto everyone. Before our game they were allowing 9ish point per game. A good d coordinator with elite talent is a scary thing
Venables is onto everyone. They recruit blue-chip players and use them to beat the other teams.
That's the definition of being elite. But it didn't take Venables or elite squads to foil us for a good portion of the Delaware and ODU games.
Both of which we won. In shutout victories. By at least four possessions.
Let's not fall into our old habits of bringing up the defense in defense of the offense. In both games we got off to a slow start against inferior competition. We will not have that luxury against BC, GT, Miami and Pitt. We can pretend beating Delaware and ODU means something (losing means something) but ODU is 0-2 against FBS teams. Delaware is 2-2 in the FCS. WVU is doing well but has yet to face any significant competition. The two FBS teams WVU beat are ECU (1-4) and Kansas (1-3). I see no reason to mention ECU as they are a complete dumpster fire. VT absolutely should be beat the hell out of ECU, Delaware and ODU. I think we have become accustomed to the ways of the past and consider these wins to be something more than what they are. I get a win is a win but not all wins are equal and not all wins say the same thing about our performance. We'll have a much better idea of how good both WVU and we are in the next week. We face BC who has a good defense (no offense) and WVU faces TCU who is doing really well. Again, for VT I am looking at when the offense starts clicking. No offense in the first half should be a red flag.
We'll get there. Rome wasn't built in a day.
Edit nevermind
I get that. But you have to start somewhere like no slow starts against FCS teams. Dominating offensively a team like ODU. I will say this gain, I don't think anyone thinks losing to Clemson is alarming. It's losing Clemson while not seeing more than we saw against Delaware and ODU. Even with rebuilding, based on pure talent, we should never struggle at ANY time during a game against that kind of competition. Our offensive system allowed us to blow the doors off ODU after half time adjustments but if we are being perfectly honest shouldn't an ACC team completely run over Delaware starting at the first snap? Yes. There is no doubt that should happen.
Let's just fire everyone and hire Butch Jones if we don't score on the first possession against BC. /s
Or we could just call people out and expect them to fix it. I'm pretty sure there's some space between calling out your OC and firing him. Just saying.
#lifechampions
Both of which we won.
In shutout victories.By at least four possessions.Okay, fixed it.
Yes. We can beat an FCS team and other teams that compete at the lowest levels by four possessions. We have nothing to work on and no reason for concern. FCS teams should leave Blacksburg with at least 40 points hung on them under all circumstances. I'm not interested in how Michigan lost to Appalachian State. That's Michigan's problem. If they want to get back to the top levels of college football they will fix that issue. If we want to cement the foundation of a rise we need to fix these issues and not make excuses for them. If you set up a pick up game between the VT team and the Delaware team where do you think that score would be? 7 on 7 flag football. Would it be only 28-0? I don't think so.
Our offense put up 342 yards to Clemson's 332. JJ was 29/44 for 251 yards. He also threw 2 interceptions. One was not his fault, but neither interception was Cornelson's fault.
I don't think Cornelson is perfect, which means he has room to improve. But I don't think he's the limiting factor on this offense.
I think some fans fear that the slow starts are a symptom of a systematic problem with our offense that might not exist against opponents that lack similar depth and/or talent, but may be an issue when we play better defenses.
I'm not yet convinced that there is a deeper problem. I understand the concern, but I personally think it's personnel related, and I think Fuente & all are doing everything they can with the existing talent, and doing all they can to upgrade talent (by coaching up current players and recruiting new ones). I'm not sure it's warranted yet, but its definitely not without cause.
Come on, man. EVERYONE knows you that college football fans can't be measured and sensible about things!
I thought on a few of those screen passes that it was shoestring tackle that brought our guys down..i remember on on one that McMillions had if it wasn't for being tackled by the ankle, he would still be running...looks like the OL got out there fine..but the defensive player would make the play..
What adjustment was there to make? It is difficult to throw outside when Clemson could win with 5 in the box and flood six in the passing areas.
The issue with Clemson playing 3 down linemen with a nose was that Lawrence was tying up 2-3 OL every play and those linemen couldn't release to the second level. The other DL were stunting. The Hokies OL played VERY slow because they were clearly confused. That allowed the Tigers to flood the short passing areas while playing soft corners and a deep centerfield. You can't throw fades against three deep. You can't throw short against 4 shallow. Cornelsen adjusted by attacking the seams vertically and the outside underneath the soft coverage as early as the middle of the second quarter. The problem is that his young QB didn't always find the right matchup and they couldn't sustain drives. More in the film review.
McMillian's fumble right after our defense gave a 3 and out to start the 2nd half really killed momentum. And the pick 6 was the nail in the coffin for a comeback.
That is a very telling graphic. If you look at the other stats VT got more first downs and more total yards. Turnovers are a killer. The other thing to consider is that with Clemson's defense huge plays were necessary it's simply too difficult to sustain long drives against a good defense. The same is true against VT's defense.
So about Clelin Ferrell. I can't stand how ESPN was making it to sound like we had no interest in him and didn't recruit him at all and so now here is a top caliber DE with a chip on his shoulder for us. Somehow he felt scorned by us not wanting him.
Checking out his recruiting profile it seems like it was between us and and Clemson. He committed to Clemson in the summer of 14 (he's class of 15).
What they don't mention is that at that point in time Clemson was trending way up and we were trending way down in fact Beamer retired after that year.
So I get why he probably went to Clemson but to act like we didn't offer him and he has a chip on his shoulder as if VT was his dream school and we didn't give him a second look.
Irritating.
Yeah I don't follow recruiting but that smelled like a load of horse shit.
I believe they're confusing him with K'Von Wallace.
Nope, it was Ferrell. They did a pregame segment on him, complete with video of him scowling at the camera, all about how "the Richmond native was spurned by VT".
There is some legitimacy to what Ferrell said.. the 804 took a big hit in recruiting (and HS relationships) right at the time #99 was being recruited. Let's put it this way, it wasn't on the kid.
It wasn't on this staff either. We wanted the kid badly, but we weren't doing a good job recruiting against Franks retirement and Shane screwed up everything 804.
If the angle was that we went harder after Sweat than Ferrell, I would understand. That's somewhat true.
You are on point with the last 5 words of that first paragraph...if there's one thing I hope this staff can do, it's getting back the relationships and repairing the bridges that were burned with hs coaches in this area. The reason we didn't get Ferrell was bc of arrogance and that's a damn shame.
But again in going harder after sweat, he didn't declare till signing day or something.
Ferrell decided June 4th, 2014. So we may have taken him off our board but that's only because he had verbally committed to Clemson and then we pursued Sweat harder as he had not yet made a decision.
My memory was that Ferrell was considered more of a sure thing early on and Sweat was going to take a lot of work. Maybe we took Farrell for granted a little bit. I believe early on his mom preferred he stay in state and that made us the de facto leaders. But when she allowed him to open it up, he was gone quickly.
Shane screwed it up which was unfortunately par for the course.
Perhaps shame did but Ferrell didn't wait to comit. It wasn't like he hung around till signing day and picked Clemson. He picked Clemson the first week of June. So if they felt shunned it seems a bit premature imo, but I don't know the specifics of his recruiting. Only that he committed to Clemson in June. It is what it is I guess but if he really wanted to go to VT then maybe he should have shown more interest as opposed to declaring for another school the first week of June. Just my 2 cents though.
More upset about how ESPN handled it than if we blew his recruiting or not. They made it seem like we weren't interested at all.
He was not huge factor in game. Plus same class as setle and year behond ricky.
We did offer him. It was the way the recruitment went down that soured him come decision time. Our lead recruiter had a certain arrogance about him that hurt a lot of relationships with high schools and ultimately high school recruits. I would love to have the capability for a re-do with this young man with our current staff. We missed the boat on him, but hopefully there will be others from the 804 that we bring to Blacksburg!
Truth.
Towards the end of the Beamer era a game like this would have felt like we had the talent to compete but we squandered our chances. Last night truly felt like we were simply outclassed. I was mostly put-out that we seemed so tentative. When we decided to go toe to toe, the gap between the two teams was much smaller. Over all it's a very young team and I hope they can take this and gain some good experience. The mistakes were young mistakes but the team never stopped fighting. It's a tough pill to swallow but Clemson is to the ACC what Alabama is to the SEC. I only wish we could have them or FSU as our yearly cross division game.
I wish we would have suffocated them in the cradle. We let a behemoth grow in our back yard
For the rest of the season, everyone on our team knows they've already played a team better than this week's opponent. We can go to Miami and Atlanta knowing we have what it takes to play hard against any team in the country.
Of course we're all disappointed we didn't get the win, but take a look at ESPN's ACC Blog today. We're still #3 in the power rankings, reported to be heading for a rematch showdown with Clemson in the ACCCG. I think we won a LOT of national respect for the way Hokie Nation turned out this weekend, GameDay and the actual game.
We only fell to 16, and if we take care of business, we're heading toward another potentially top 12 matchup with Miami. Win that and win out, we're looking at a top 8 ranking and rematch with Clemson, with much more experience under our belt. I definitely think we won back a lot of national attention after this weekend. We are a good team with lots of potential.
Classic trap game. They caught us looking ahead to BC. /s
So, on a positive note, the crowd stayed in that game basically until the pick 6, which 2-3 years ago wouldn't have been the case. Can't wait til we win one of these at home....
Noticed the same thing. Was glad to see the crowd in the game for so long.
I was bummed I had to leave a few minutes after the pick six, but when you're ride is ready then you don't have any choice either.
Time for a new friend lottery eh?
Punch him and take the keys. There are always options.
From being in the crowd, I never gave up. Screamed to the end with the people around me if for nothing else to try and drown out the Clemson crowd when they tried to chant in OUR stadium.
Let's go undefeated from here on out and earn a rematch against those sum'bitches in December.
Proud of this team. It doesn't feel like anything has changed from last week after sleeping on it. Time to go 1-0 against BC.
Wonderful school: check
Beautiful campus: check
Great facilities: check
Coaching: check
Fans:check
Effort: check
4-5 star 3 deep roster: ................
Go Hokies!
Preach.
As strong as your avatar's hair...
Everyone is saying we need better talent. I agree but they're saying that because we have great coaches. This game was a stepping stone into the future and I believe we sent recruits the right message.
Re: recruiting, One way to get better recruits is show that you're on an upward trajectory. To show you are an "elite" football brand. I was blown away at the kudos from ESPN. The talking points of our coaches. The overall feel of gameday. I think we put our best foot forward as a program. Time will tell but I thought we did a nice job of selling VT football yesterday. I was proud of the team, coaches, and administration.
Agree 100%. No one really gave us a chance to win the game anyways. So it's not like we crapped the bed against a team we should have beat.
Clemson was in the same spot a few years ago. As I mentioned above about Ferrell at that time we were trending down and they were trending up.
Agree! Nobody gave us much of a chance anyways yet our D mostly played lights out after a couple of shaky first possessions by Clemson, and our offense showed its youth and inexperience yet still was able to move the ball here and there, just shot ourselves in the foot with turnovers and stalling out in scoring position. With 100 recruits on campus for that game, with the way we played and with how awesome the crowd was, I think we accelerated our timetable in a good way. Once Fuente gets a few more classes of "his" guys, we'll be sitting pretty.
To me it felt a lot like the Tennessee game, where at every moment it looked like we might start mounting a comeback, we had a devastating turnover. Gotta clean that up moving forward in acc play.
The defense played well in the second half, although it would've been nice to generate a turnover to help spark our offense.
Clemson is certainly the more talented team overall, but honestly the deciding factor of the game was turnovers, which seemed to happen every time we were gaining momentum.
That's a pattern with Bud vs Dabo/Elliott offenses. Bud never turns them over. In each of the five games, yards have been pretty close whereas we are always worse than (-2) TOs.
Meh. We had to press in the 2nd half to try to get back in the game and made some mistakes. Some of those were based on youth and can be corrected. Clemson was able to maintain a comfortable lead and played smart knowing a turnover could let us back in the game. I personally don't see much behind a Bud vs Dabo/Elliott storyline here (also Chad Morris was OC for the 2011 games).
Clemson's OC did a good job of simplifying the game for his QB. We got some pressure but they never really ran anything risky or something we could bait for a pick.
Feel bad for JJ. Made good decisions all night against the best defense he'll ever see, and still wound up with two INTs
that weren't his fault at alland only one that was his fault. Despite that, the guy never once seemed rattled. His poise is ridiculous.How was the second one not his fault?
The pick six? It literally bounced off Murphy's helmet and into the hands of the Clemson defender. Murphy just couldn't bring it in.
The pick six was first. The jump in the air and steal the screen was second - and that one was on JJ.
Aww shit. Is it obvious I just woke up?
Yeah I was somehow getting Travon's fumble confused for the first INT. Don't ask me.
Yeah that second pick was athletic as hell.
FWIW Fuente said in the post game that he attributes the second intercept to a great play by the defender more than JJ.
It was a great play by the defender - but still, a better qb figures out a way to prevent that.
I agree with this to an extent. Maybe JJ could have avoided that int, but damn that was a great play by the defender. It'll be on highlight reels and the announcers said something like 'that will be on his nfl draft scouting tape'. That wouldn't have happened if it weren't a spectacular defensive play.
The first int wasn't really JJ's fault, but there were three Clemson defenders right there when he bobbled it. Cunningham didn't block his guy at all and the WR was a sitting duck.
The second int is on JJ - the first not at all. A great QB fakes out that guy with a pump fake then delivers the ball. It was a pro-level play, but still on JJ.
pump fakes on screens can really mess up timing. may work some of the time. Probably the best thing to do is the alter the arm angle to go around the defender (instead of over top).
If my memory is correct on this, it is hard to fake a throw when you have a different defender in your face when you throw the screen. If he faked this throw, he is getting blown up by the defender that busted through the line.
That second int was on him. Desperation heave off his back foot right into a cluster of tigers
...Huh?
Desperation heave? Wasn't it a screen ?
Desperate as in during a normal game he wouldn't have thrown that ball. In the first 4 games JJ was particularly judicious with the ball. The pass wasn't there and he threw it anyway. Desperation press play IMO. And though it was a spectacular play by the end I seem to remember there were other white jerseys around where the ball was headed. Screen or not, it was a dangerous throw that I think normally JJ wouldn't attempt.
i like JJ and im not going to blame him for the loss as it was a team effort but to many times the middle of the field (seam) was wide open and he would look at cam and then immediately check down to the RB. Clemson caught on and nearly had a 2nd pick 6 on the sideline that was dropped by #7 on fox.
like French wrote in his preview the slot was the miss match safeties and LBs on CJ carroll and we even moved cam into the slot to work some (although from where I was sitting it look liked they shadowed cam with the same DB all night which is against there normal tendencies) we would take advantage for a couple plays and get the ball moving and then we would go back to the screen game or jet sweep and they just weren't working Clemson is to fast. I understand why they did it to try and keep clemsons D line from being down hill and Teeing off on JJ but Clemson like mentioned above won the coaching match up this time. this was NOT on JJ.
We are going to love watching JJ when he learns to read the field better. The wide-open routes that he just didn't see were really disappointing. The second INT was also a play where he appeared to decide what he was going to do as soon as the ball was snapped, and he didn't have the presence of mind to notice that the defender was in position to make the play. This was his fifth college game, and his second time out against a really good defense. As the game starts slowing down for him, he's only going to get better.
I really don't think Slye is the sole issue on the missed field goals. A miss last night was a terrible hold. Bradbury put the ball down, fumbled it a little, picked it up slight again and then finally set it. You can't put that missed kick on Slye. I think Slye, Bradburn and Taylor need to get in sync. They just aren't a well oiled machine yet.
It was a low snap. Hard for Bradburn to handle
Box score was pretty even, except for turnovers.
As disappointed as I was in the moment last night while watching, I feel like that result was fairly predictable (for an objective person). I love Cornelson and Fuente and still have full trust in them, but it seemed like we lacked a coherent offensive game plan last night.
Cam is still great, once Savoy gets his drop out of the way he's good, and after that we have no consistent receiving threat.
Travon's inconsistency is infuriating.
Defense played about as well as we could hope. They gave up the one busted play for 6, then went soft on the drive before the half, which it seemed like Clemson was ready for. Tackling was off and on, but that's to be expected against Clemson's kind of talent. Overall they played their asses off and I'm proud of them.
We didn't play as well as I hoped but mostly I hope the recruits left with a positive experience. Thought the coverage we got all day was very positive. Bottom line: we need some more athletes to be able to compete.
I disagree with the Travon part. Yes it was a fumble at a very crucial time but it was just a mistake. It happens. He's shown in his two years that he only does well when he gets all the touches. He needs to get in a rhythm and see this defense before he can find the holes and i wish we would give him the 20 carries he needs (ex. Miami last year, Freshamn season) because he would give us a run game. No running back can get it going by running the ball twice and then getting pulled for 10 minutes and Travon Mcmilian is the most talented back on the team.
Travon made some key cuts in the wrong direction. I have to check to see which drive it was but there was one run where he hit the first hole great but then went left into his blocker and two Clemson defenders when the right side of the field seemed wide open. We stalled out on the drive and maybe got a field goal or missed a field goal (don't remember).
There were a couple plays where maturity at key positions will help. All those 9 yard completions where the younger WRs didn't fight for the first and then we weren't able to convert really stung. Fox trying to juke defenders when he needs to realize what he can realistically get and just make the best of it. Knowing when stopping the clock is worth more than that extra yard, etc etc etc.
I don't think it happened last night as much, but Clemson has been doing pretty well with a running back committee. Etienne, who has the least touches every game for Clemson, has the most yards I believe.
No. One of the only the Foster and Crew were able to accomplish last night was taking Etienne out of the game (not injury), basically rendering him a non-factor (save for that single, small burst in garbage time). Fox had more yards than him. In fact, I believe, Fox had the MOST ypc out of any tailback on the field last night (and that's for both teams).
Correct. Neither teams running backs where a factor. Kelly Bryant accounted for 94 or Clemson's 146 rushing yards. Fox was by far the most effective runner by both total (39 yards) and per carry (7.8) yards.
I'm not sure "most talented back on the team" is much praise.
We just aren't good there and haven't been since Wilson. We are now saying Fox needs more touches, that's indicative of our talent status.
The days of having a back we just hand it off to and expect them to make a play seem for foreign now. 2011...2011! was the last season with Wilson. Man it's been awhile.
Losing Marshawn Williams and Shai Mckenzie hurt a lot.
Squandering Trey Edmunds and over playing JC Coleman was the beginning of the end
Edmunds career at VT was mostly derailed because of injuries. Not much you can do about that. He had twice as many carries as the next RB (JC Coleman) his rFr year but then broke his leg against UVA. Just when he started getting more carries again the next year he broke his collarbone against UNC. He got a few carries the following season but it's hard to argue against giving McMillian most of the carries with the way he played that season.
I feel like the staff tried pretty hard to find a feature back during the JC Coleman years (Edmunds, Marshawn, Shai, and Joel Caleb) but injuries or inconsistent performance tied their hands until McMillian broke out his freshman year.
When you talk about injuries and the rolling of the dice Beamer's last few years were insane.
I'd love to have JCC right now.
Not only is this offense better suited for him, but that comment also represents the faith I have in the current set of RB's.
Nope. Needing rhythm is an excuse for a rookie. He is not playing like a back that deserves more touches right now.
Rhythm is so important for a runningback
There isn't a top team that gives a RB more than 15 carries on average per game anymore, it just isn't done.
Sequan Barkley disagrees.
Only 66 rushing attempts the whole season only been in on a total of 89 plays period. So like I said.
The discussion was in terms of sharing the load vs having a feature back. He has 66 rush attempts and the next highest RB has 8.
So not quite the same as the semantics of 13.2 carries per game vs 15. He is a solo feature back. They do exist.
Barkley barely played in the second half against both Akron and Georgia State, so there's that to consider.
That's what an NFL-level defensive line will do.
Negative. An NFL level defense squashes you even when you look good. That's where those "awe" plays come from. "OMG. How did he break up that pass? That was incredible!" "OMG. I can't believe he brought down that running back on an open field tackle!" Looking like a mess is on us. No one was shocked when Clemson dropped our receiver for a loss on a screen play 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage. There was a complete lack of incredible execution by both teams. Clemson simply executed, no feats necessary.
As for the QB draw, I really thought we were setting up the pop pass. Surprised we didn't see it in the second half.
I said the same thing in the 1st half. I figured they were trying to set it up for a big play in the 2nd half.
I thought with the time Josh had to throw all night, he did magnificently. You'd be hard pressed to find another freshman who would've held his composure that well. That midfield fumble broke my heart so hard. Uncle Mo seemed like he was ready to get on the hype train.
Last night was also the loudest I've heard Lane in a very, very long time.
Also, Kelly Bryant is an elusive sob.
Agreed. JJ did very well. By comparison, Bryant threw two picks against BC at home. He's in pretty good company there. I would say that Bryant's picks were far more careless than JJ's. The first one was really on the receiver. If you fail to catch the ball that hits you in the hands you need to immediately become a defensive back and make a play (far easier said than done). The second one, as much as a lot of people want to say he shouldn't have thrown, was a circus catch by an incredibly talented DE. Those kinds of plays rarely happen at any level. I wouldn't have him lose sleep over it. 99% of the time that pass to either guy turns out okay. JJ came up on the plus side of luck last week with that freakish deflection from Cam to Peoples, he got the other side of the coin this week. He'll end up on the plus side of these things more often than not and these are not 50/50 situations.
i thought we needed at least +2 in turnovers and the bounces to go our way to beat them...didn't happen
differences in the game...Bryant's wheels, Clemson front 4, -3 in turnovers (actually just the first 2).
props to McClease and Fox for doing a great job at getting the yards that are available, to the team and coaches for never laying down, and to the students, alumni, and other supporters for making VT the incredible university and football venue that it is
After sleeping on it, I think we are alright. Two plays actually cost us the game. TMac's fumble, and the pick six. We handled them, but needed a perfect game, and didn't get it. Herbie praised our efforts, and noted most of our players, are still very young. Tremaine is still only 19.
Offense is missing a spark, but there are signs we are seeing progress. Savoy, Fox, if we can get a running back, we could be a force to reckon with.
Don't forget the busted coverage for first TD. That was 3rd down and if we stopped them there we possibly go into halftime 10-3 vs 17-3.
Reality is though most college football teams allow 1-2 of those plays throughout the game. AND have at least a turnover. Clemson did not because they are damn good. We had one break all game, the punt return. No key penalties, no turnovers, no busted coverage for TD's. They are just a good fball team reaching bama esque levels.
I'll let people who know more than me comment on the game.
All I know is Blacksburg showed well last night. GameDay was huge. Lane was rocking. Sandman looked amazing on tv. Someone else mentioned the branding involved with college sports. Well I can tell you that a city 700 miles away noticed Blacksburg yesterday. I went to the Cardinals game in a VT shirt and got a few comments like "I was watching ESPN this morning, you all seem excited."
I guess what I'm saying is, great work Hokies. Even with the result we didn't want, we still showed well. Let's go kick the shit out of BC.
Setting up a nationally recognized brand is a HUGE + for recruiting. I think if we fix the dorms up and keep the hype we will start seeing top talent land in Blacksburg. We have seen MASSIVE changes in recruiting, image and perception in the past year and we aren't even halfway through Fuentes 2nd year.
In 2-3 more years we will be looking at a truly new VT football
At least we got Coleman Fox out of all of this.
And Hank Beamer.
And all of the retired #s together*. That was fantastic.
*nice job bringing in Loria family.
So just leave this at 20 upvotes. Seems right.
Everyone can place upvotes here instead and I will transfer them later. ;-)
We lost to a team that was supposed to beat us. No biggie. But, I wasn't fond of how we lost. There were times the team looked good. Coming out in the second half, it looked like they had things figured out. And then we'd make a stupid mistake and the whole thing would die.
JJ was slow on delivering. A lot of his receivers would be open for a while, by the time he delivers, they're covered.
Our db's looked very slow after completions. It was like once the ball was caught, they were mired in quicksand.
I have defended Motuapuaka many times. On the goaline play, he played it perfectly. Hit the guy for a loss. And then he just gets rolled for the score. I was disappointed.
The turnovers sucked. And the game wasn't close because of it. I didn't expect to win, but without those, it would have been closer.
Some bright points were there though.
Eric Kumah was open... a lot. Didn't seem like JJ was seeing it.
Our defense was getting stops in the second half. I can't complain about much, other than the occasional breakdown. But the breakdowns were big.
Coleman Fox needs to get some more touches early in the game. He seems to make things happen. Even watching him block, the effort is there. He might not be big enough to move a lineman, but he was in the way. Often that is more than enough.
THIS^^^I feel is the BEST and most accurate summation.
I am holding off on the Coleman Fox train, guy has seen all of his carries against gassed defenses in garbage time.
That's why I'm wanting to see them earlier in the game. I'm not saying he's ready to be a full time contributor. But, he's done well with what he's been given, when it's been given. I want to see some other circumstances.
Folks we are 4-1 after five games and could go into the bye 5-1, not too bad!
With
likelypotential wins against Boston College, UNC, Duke, UVA, Pitt and toss up games against Miami and Georgia Tech.That's a 9-3 season going into a bowl in year two of the Fuente tenure.
Let's all take a breath and realize how fortunate we will be if that scenario plays out given the state of recruiting in Beamer's final years.
In Fuente I believe!
With this team, I would only categorize the UNC game as a likely win. Every one of those teams will bring their absolute best and we have a tiny margin of error.
Would you rather I say potential...ok potential.
Sorry to nitpick man, I just am trying to manage expectations!
It's all good, potential is what I meant.
Waking with a hangover after not sleeping because well I never sleep after these losses, thinking about the what ifs and all doesn't help one think clearly. Lol
Sorry my previous reply was a bit snarky.
I mean i think josh had a meh game. he was SUPER timid throughout, missed 3 wide open guys down the seam just to check down instead, and on the 2 minute drive had a WIDE open chris cunningham in the endzone and instead threw it into 1 on 1 coverage to i believe cam. Clemsons defense will do that to you though, theyre a loaded defense
One play (of many) last night demonstrated the the talent difference. Mook lined up on the left rushes into the backfield free to take down the QB. In all our previous games, he easily makes that tackle with his dominant quickness. He was used to making that tackle due to lesser talent. Last night, he approached the tackle the same, didn't really break down, and got completely stunned/frozen/acl destroyed/ankle-snapped by Bryant. Perhaps with a different approach he could have made that tackle, or at least slowed Bryant down until help arrived and prevented the 20 yard gain that ensued. All of their players had speed and strength and it showed. Cam wasn't able to outmuscle that big corner that was matched up on him, whereas earlier in the season he was having his way with smaller corners. We needed a perfect night, with a strong start, and we didn't get it. In spite of what some have said, we did look timid early, especially on offense. Doubt seemed everywhere. Players dancing in place after catches instead of getting the extra yard to convert a first down. We should learn from this.
Playing Clemson was a hard way to open the ACC season. Clemson had already been in some battles: Auburn, Louisville and even BC. I think we weren't totally prepared for the steps up in competition. Would've been nice to get warmed up with BC or somebody before we played Clemson.
At the end of the day, we have just as much of a chance to make the playoffs now as we did before this loss. If we win out and beat Clemson in the ACCCG, we're a 1-loss ACC champ and playoff-bound.
Leg for optimism.
I want to throw a shoutout to one player that has actually made some pivotal catches (see 3rd and long vs. WVU) and had a couple last night ---> CJ Carroll. Everyone says all we have are Cam and Savoy (after he has his token drop) and that's it. Not really. CJ has had some great clutch catches for us, and I can't recall any dropsies. Just thought that needed to get out there. (Though he is NOT the guy for the jet sweep)
Or the right guy to try a fake pass. Dude was a foot shorter than the defender
As CJ was rolling out the guy behind me got all excited and yelled, "HE'S GONNA THROW IT! HE'S GONNA THROW IT!" Then he kinda mumbled, "then again, maybe not." Somehow the humor softened the blow.
Others have pointed this out, but there were several plays when CJ was running free down the seam. When JJ learns to read that and throw to him, this offense is going to take a big step forward.
McClease turned up way inside of the edge guy he was supposed to block, and didn't play after that. Fuente mentioned that Fox played because of "a fumble and a missed block." I bet that was the missed block because I don't remember seeing McClease after that series. Correct me if I am wrong.
They made a freshman QB look like a freshman QB, though overall I thought he did okay. We need help on offense, the McMillian fumble and that pick 6 which bounced out of Murphy's hand were the difference in the game.
The defense looked great at times and terrible in others. That easy drive Clemson had at the end of the 1st half was big.
Also... that fake FG on 4 and 12 was STUPID!!!! If you're going to go for it leave your offense on the field, especially at the distance.
The good news? We don't play anyone nearly as talented as Clemson the rest of the regular season...this team still has tons of time to grow and get better, and still have ALOT to play for.
End rant.
I didn't have a problem with the fake field goal decision. My problem was with the execution/playcall. They had space outside and instead the run went into the crowd to the right of the line. No hole. No hope of success.
Yeah, that's what I was getting at. Totally understand why it was done, but the play called or the execution or both were terrible IMO
I'm leaning towards the idea that we went for that because we weren't sure if Slye would hit from 38.
4th and 12 is a hard place to call something like that. I woulda preferred it if we had just kicked it.
Nah. It had nothing to do with Joey. A FG would have brought the score from 21 down to 18. That's a three possession game to a.......three possession game. We were never going to kick one, I'm just not too sure that a fake was a better choice than just actually having the offense out there. Dabo seemed to know from his reaction that we were probably gonna fake it since it would have been meaningless.
But you can't help but wonder what happens if we didn't lose 8 yards on the Carroll pass non-attempt.
Agreed. But I still would have rather left the offense on the field. A FG was going to do NOTHING for us.
In the beginning of the season, Fuente said he was more concerned about our receivers than our QB situation. That rang very true last night.
I said we'd have to play a near perfect game to win. 3 turnovers, 2 botched field goal opportunities, and 1 busted coverage was not near perfect.
The Foundation is there though. You see the potential in the scheme. Just need to coach players and recruit.
I thought back to when Clemson lost to FSU at home 51-14 in 2013 the whole time while watching the game. We obviously didn't get anywhere close to losing the same margin, but similar to that beat down that Clemson had back then it was obvious that we didn't have the talent that they do yet.
That loss that Clemson suffered back in 2013 showed that they weren't ready to contend for an NC quite yet. This one is similar for us. It's a process, and we have lots of places where we have to improve. But we have heading in the right direction, I honestly believe we are 3-4 years away from winning a game like this.
And you know what? That's perfectly ok. Fuente has far exceeded my expectations so far and the future is very bright. In the words of Joel Embiid, "Trust the process." Now let's kick some BC tail and get to 5-1 for the first time in 4 years.
I don't think I'd put us at 2013 Clemson talent levels just yet. That team had 6 five stars and 34 (!) four-stars on the roster.
Not having Peoples out there hurt tremendously.
Watching it live it felt like we couldn't get a single break, and it shows in the box score. We outgained them, but turnovers killed us. I don't have a single major concern after last night, and I definitely think the missed FG was because of the bad snap/hold.
Joey hates the angle from the left hash.
If he didn't before, he does now.
I feel like us outgaining them is related more to the shift in gameplans after a certain point. We started airing it out more and Clemson started playing more conservative.
Yeah we were gunning for touchdowns in the fourth quarter while Clemson was playing more of a "just don't do anything to lose" game at that point. Plus Clemson got fantastic field position multiple times due to their defense shutting down our offense. Total yards gained will be low when you're starting out at damn near midfield for half your possessions.
My take from last night is Clemson had 0 turnovers we had 3 that led to 14 points. The fumble really hurt because it changed the way we had to play on offense in the second half. I think Fuente/Corn had made adjustments for how to attack their d that they had to basically scrap once they went up 24-3. The defense had tackling issues all night, I know Kelly is a big mobile qb who runs like Cam Newton but the arm tackles and lack of swarming led to Kelly running in circles and gaining yards. The rib's for Clemson didn't do anything. Take away the busted coverage that led to the 60 yard TD, Kelly was just average. I think if we could have contained him better he couldn't have beat us with his arm alone. My complaint on our offense was the conservative play calling in the first half. We didn't try to stretch the field, JJ played nervous and threw off his back foot too much. Both int's were freak plays, Murphy should have caught the first and the second was a hell of a play by the Clemson defender. We need a rb to step up and at least prove they can grind out 4 yards and not fumble and we need a wr other than Cam and Savoy to step up. We left points on the field and they capitalized off our mistakes and that's the difference in the ball game. Hope that we get to see them in the ACCCG.
The talent disparity is obviously there. I'm concerned about the lack of a true game breaker other than Cam on offense. It seems no other WR is stepping up as a reliable #2. Savoy has shown flashes, but it just seems like no one is getting much separation from the pack. What has happened to James Clark? It looked like he was on the verge of making an impact for us, and he didn't play a single snap last night.
We better hope Farley, Turner, and Simmons are ready to go next year. Losing Cam, I'm concerned with the receiver group next year.
It's also a shame we can't figure out a way to get AJ Bush on the field. As the coaches have commented, he's likely the best athlete on the team. But there's a reason JJ is starting ahead of him, likely because of his aversion to turnovers. We need more game breaking athletes on that side of the ball if we are going to compete against the top teams. We also can't play an ultra conservative scheme and make everyone so afraid of a mistake that it holds us back. I was shocked we didn't lay everything on the table last night honestly - we had nothing to lose and played like we had everything to lose.
While it's obvious that talent wise we weren't ready for a game like this, I'd say that you can make that same argument coaching wise. And no, that's not a knock on Fuente or Corny. Neither have a coached in a game like this and honestly I thought they had to overthink a few things last night to try and offset the talent disparity.
Fuente will learn from this, as will the players. Like I mentioned in my post above, I sure as hell hope this game can be a learning experience like it was Clemson in 2013.
I read Clark hurt his hand (thumb maybe?) so that's why he didn't play. Hopefully he will be good to go next week.
Don't forget about Hazelton...I think he can replace Phillips next year.
I'm really hoping that Hazelton can come in and make an impact next year. He's got good size and would be nice if he's a guy we can rely to go up and contest for those 50/50 balls.
Everyone wants to "stretch the field" have we not read any of French's reviews. We don't have anyone who is going to take the top off a Defense with speed right now.
The problem was that the weak part of their defense was the secondary and we didn't attack it all night, we didn't even try
I remember only one jump ball to Cam. At a certain point in the game you just have to try and force feed him
It was a bad throw. It needed to be on the back shoulder, and instead it was right in front of the defender, too easy of a play for the CB to disrupt the pass. For JJ to reach the next level, he needs to get better at ball location. This is true on many of the short throws as well. Too often, the receivers are adjusting to catch the ball instead of catching it in stride or in a place to make a move on the defender. We're losing out on 3-4 yards, first downs, and/or potential break-away TDs.
He's a freshman, and he can get better, but for this offense to really "click," the ball needs to get into the playmakers hands so that they can make plays with the ball (not merely plays to catch the ball).
(Should note though, the interception was a very nicely placed ball. Note JJ's fault at all.)
Biggest thing to me- the team didn't give up against a team that's just flat out more talented. The talent will come, the effort is something you can control.
Completely agree. Everyone kept playing.
Losing by 14 against a better team may well amount to a moral victory, but on the other hand, we could have thrown in the towel like Ole Miss and lost by 9 touchdowns instead.
I get it's a loss and people are going to be overly negative.
But these knee jerk reactions are priceless
It's Year 2. Clemson is a really good team.
They held Auburn without a touchdown who has gone on and obliterated teams.
They beat the Heisman winning quarterback by 26 points. Who has gone on to put up video game numbers once again.
We had some mistakes that were costly. But we're young.
If these coaches stay together, This won't be the last trip College Gameday makes to Blacksburg. We're on a Championship level trajectory only we're getting there much quicker than Clemson did.
Dabos first two years
2009
9 - 5
Recruiting ranking: 36
2010
6 - 7
Recruiting ranking: 27
Year 3. Recruiting ranking number 10 with 3 5 stars and 5 top 50 players. That is what we need.
Agreed.
But they also lost 70 - 33 that year against West Virginia in the bowl game and they turned out okay.
It's going to take time. Right now honestly I feel like Clemson and Alabama are just on a different level than everyone else. I don't see them losing.
Penn State. Oklahoma. Ohio State. They all seem beatable. Alabama and Clemson don't right now.
So much this.
I have PLENTY of misgivings about the game (some truly mind bending playcalling, another first half played with a confused secondary) and about personnel (tired of watching McMillian run soft and fumble, tired of Motu not being big or fast enough, tired of seeing Joey Slye miss completely makeable FGs). But Clemson is also just way better than us at every single position. We needed to play flawless football to beat that team. We didn't, and we lost - and we should have.
But think big picture. jobus has it right - next week is this staff's 20th game, and we have a 10-win season, a Coastal crown, a bowl win and a national ranking (#16 AP, #19 coaches', which is about where we should have been last week IMO) to our credit. Anyone who wanted more than that from Virginia Tech Football through 20 Fuente Era games needs to have their
headexpectations examined.We're recruiting better (OL still a problem) and winning games we would have lost in years past (Arkansas, Notre Dame, Duke, Pitt, WVU). It's pretty clear that this program is headed in the right direction. We all wanted us to play better against Clemson - that team has arrived. They're there.
But we're on our way...
Let's not forget that it's not just our offense that's young.
We have a young HC and OC.
I'm sure they learned from last night too, and will adjust accordingly.
The sky is not falling.
I seriously thought the offensive playbook would be opened up for this game. But seeing the play calls by Cornelsen were head scratching. Take for example, the last touchdown throw by JJ. That play should have been called during the very first drive to try to shake loose Clemson's D even if it would have been incomplete.
Our defense came to ball and it showed once they settled down. They gave us a chance in the 2nd half and our offense turned it over twice that killed any shot of a potential comeback.
Hindsight is 20/20 though I agree. I felt we should have dropped back and tried to throw the ball downfield earlier.
We just wanted to keep it vanilla so we can really open it up against BC
This is one of my biggest take aways from the game. I think we all thought/hoped we were playing so vanilla through the beginning of the season to open it up against Clemson. Saturday has me thinking that's just who we are right now with all the inexperience on offense. As frustrating as the game was to watch, once I cooled down about it the offense looked a lot like preseason expectations for them.
Slept on it, loss is already behind me and hopefully is for the team as well. We lost to a better team. There weren't a couple of plays that changed the game or any of that nonsense. We were outmatched. But the team stuck to it and the fans stuck to it for a long time which is nice.
Will the talent get there for us? Eh, I'm not getting my hopes up. I don't really see VT as a top10 recruiting school. but I do think we looked good enough to have a great season. I'd love to see them again in the ACCCG.
1. We played defending national champs.
2. Alabama and clemson are way ahead of everyone else.
3. Best D we will see all year.
4. Can't win with -3 turnovers.
5. Offense is way too young still.
5. For you guys jumping ship don't let the door hit you on way out. Some people are acting like we just lost 60-0. As much as the loss sucks , we are still going in the right direction we just aren't there yet .
Apart from a bad punt, fumble, pick six, and couple big plays...I think we played them pretty evenly. They are definitely more polished but not on a whole different plane. We have a lot to work on before the rematch.
Something else I've noticed is that JJ running makes me wince. Idk if he just seems fragile or what, but I'm not comfortable with his running. I feel you gotta either be a bulldozer like Evans or be able to juke a defender out of his socks like Bryant (I hope Mook finds his socks btw). JJ doesn't seem to possess those qualities right now. His best runs seem to be when there is a massive hole for him to pass through unscathed.
Agreed...him running reminds me of when Jim Druckenmiller would run...he didn't do it often, but when he did...it was ugly...lol
Drunkenmiller was my Freshman year QB. I remember him usually being the bulldozer.
He definitely hesitates on runs. It's kind of like McMillian sometimes. Natural runners see holes forming, un-nutrual runners look for open holes to run through. McMillian was a dual threat QB in HS. I'm not sure that is really teachable. Evans probably didn't care if a hole was forming, he was going to punch a hole in the defense.
Yeah, which is why having that reliable number RB is important I think. We get a guy that plays with that vision and natural skill and then we don't have to run JJ and let him use his strengths.
Losing Marshawn Williams hurt a lot. Shai was a good runner two but probably wasn't willing to follow the new rules.
I agree. There's a visible hesitation on runs, which serves to close up the holes, not open them up.
If he's going to run, the advantage is in deciding and executing quickly, before the defense has it figured out.
Also, they went to the JJ run on some plays where IMHO it wasn't indicated. It seemed like any other play might have had a better chance of succeeding.
Maybe they were setting something up, but he's not like Bryant, who can dodge defenders and sprint out of there like a jackrabbit.
A quick shout out to the fans.
I wasn't able to commit an entire day to VT football yesterday and those that did represented us very well.
I'm almost more disappointed for the fans than the players. We maybe had a 25% chance to win that game but it would have been really nice for one of those 25% to happen yesterday as a culmination of a day of Hokie Football celebration.
That was a huge commitment on many of your parts. The disappointment is real and legitimate. But this needs to be a jumping off point to a new era. Thank you for all of us who maybe were there for those first GameDay appearances that couldn't be there yesterday. It was a great demonstration of the spirit of our community.
We've got a fanbase stacked with 4 and 5 stars.
Yep...noticed a lot of people on social media saying that VT has set the bar for Gameday...unfortunately we have not been "relevant" for some time so we need to continue to set the bar, but we also need to get it done ON the field as well and I think it will come...just gotta give it time...
North end zone was filling up 90 mins before kickoff. Stadium was pretty full 45 mins before -- and in north people were coming in and wandering around the aisles in groups of 3 and 4 looking for places to squeeze in, without much luck. Pre-game atmosphere was incredible. Definitely the most amped pregame environment I've ever experienced, and I was at 05 Miami and pretty much every home game from 2011-2015 (OSU is notable) plus BAB. There was a Clemson student there with her Hokie sister a row behind us and after the game she said that she hadn't experienced anything like it and that VT has something unique and special -- the entire weekend left her with such an increased amount of respect for our program and the school and the fans.
From the start of TV coverage right before Enter Sandman, the South End Zone at the upper corners and upper 21/23 sections had a lot of empty seats. Hard to estimate a number though.
I can tell you why. My section had at least 10 people doubled up with people who clearly didn't have tickets in that section. I think what they did was buy a few decent seats and then a few crappy ones in the South EZ and then all sat in the good seats. It was annoying.
Any student with a south ticket who doesn't get into north is doing it entirely wrong. Stadium was full, north was way beyond capacity.
That the North was overloaded was obvious from the far side of the west stands. They need to replace those bleachers. I worry about the weight capacity.
Agreed, I think replacing the NEZ bleachers with a more permanent structure should be made a priority. Make it big enough so all student ticket holders can fit, then make the East and SEZ student section general public or season ticket holder space so hopefully we avoid empty corners.
All you engineering nerds in here (I don't actually know if this is even an engineering question but...):
In the event that the unfortunate circumstance of replacing the North bleachers occurs, is there some type of material they could lay on the 'ground' below the seats to recreate that sweet sweet sound of 1000s of drunk college kids stomping their feet on metal bleachers?
short answer: no
long answer: It's all about resonance. When you have the bleachers, you have nice long spans of unsupported metal that can vibrate and make noise. And even where it is supported, it's by nice long i-beams separating the benches/floors from the ground (ground doesn't vibrate real well, all things considered). I would be very surprised if there was a way of making the bleachers more permanent/secure without deadening the sound.
My vote would be to make the north permanent, but find some way to add something at the top of the stands to capture more of the crowd noise and direct it fieldward.
Sooo...we collect the NEZ sounds and use an acoustic device to effectively transmit and direct those sounds onto the field!
Brilliant!
more like this:
I love that stadium. Never been there, but it looks like one of the most beautiful settings for football.
Last night was hard to watch at times. For the most part though I'm even more proud of the team and the coaches they didn't give up
I can say we are definitely moving in the right direction. Guys remember how long it actually took for Clemson to catch up with fsu? 4yrs maybe? CJF is early into his 2nd yr
Clemson is completely loaded with top talent. My concern is whether or not we as a program have the capacity to reach that level of recruiting. I have no doubt we can land top 25-top 20 classes, but do we have what it takes to land top 10 classes? I think Fuente is doing a great job, but we've yet to see if we can recruit on a level to truly compete with the top teams. Scheme and coaching will only get you so far.
NO
We don't have the budget. Plan and simply. We still have parts of Tech facilities that look like they were last redesigned in the late 80's early 90's, we don't have same kind of support staff, recruiting travel budget (which we need higher than schools closer to major metro areas anyway) or other intangibles. Look how much of a break Bud is giving in his salary compared to his market worth. What happens when he leaves and Tech has to pay for top end DC?
Our facilities are pretty good on tv. With the exception of that ugly chain link gate in the tunnel. You'd think we could afford something a little nicer.
Facilities go way beyond the stadium: team rooms, team dining hall, locker room, team rehab, dorms, etc.
crazy to read some title's that Clemson has for all the football support staff. I mean they have assistants for assistants.
I know people give you a lot of crap for constantly reminding us, but you're right. Clemson is on another level when it comes to athletics fundraising. Their fanbase pours obscene amounts of money into that program. We have to decide we are sick of losing to them and put our money where our mouth is if we want to win. If we don't, I think our program will reach a ceiling of being competitive in the ACC, but come up short against the elite. I think Fuente and Foster are two of the brightest in the business with Xs and Os, but we need more athletes if we are going to catch up with Clemson.
You're absolutely right that Clemson outfundraises us by a wide margin. The other half of that story is that we have more varsity sports than them competing for that same pot of money. They made a conscious decision to put all their weight behind money making sports and it's paying off for them. Similar to JMU.
I'm pretty sure I'm not interested in VT making a similar move, just that to get on an even playing field we actually have to out do them by a decent margin.
We'll get a second chance at Clemson. Redemption is the theme for the rest of the season.
Anyone else feel like Dabo letup on the gas towards the end of the game. I kind of feel like he likes our program and coach, so he didn't want to completely destroy us. And by no means am I saying that we didn't play better in the second half, just that they had a comfortable lead and played some more base plays.
I noticed that as well
I thought he wanted to avoid any injuries. When #49 tracked their running QB down in the open field, I thought he must be thinking of pulling the guy already. We were also getting more hyped up it seemed on the D with guys really trying to lay some wood and make things happen.
But beyond that Clemson claims to have NFLers in the 3deep. You gotta get them some quality PT if you want to keep em happy.
JMHO
The announcers made a big point of mentioning that Clemson was putting in some backups. Multiple times.
Definitely played softer on D. I think that's why Fox looked as good as he did. Nonetheless, I'd like to see him get a chance earlier to see what he can do.
Would like to see Fox and Pimpleton on a jet sweep early in the game. Has Pimpleton run a jet sweep yet? Seems like a good play to get him involved.
I think there were several reasons for this...limit injuries, he knew they could simply run the ball to score any time they wanted...but the main reason, I believe, is he knows there is a good chance they will see us again in the ACCCG, so why give us more experience against them and their 'real' offense?
This is just silly if they thought they could have scored 60 they would have. They are trying to unseat Alabama and a real blow out over a ranked team would help that cause. This game came down to a more athletic QBand better skill guys and the Vt turnovers. The etiene kid rushed 8 times for like 20yds. Poor tackling in VT second third level and inability to get the QB on the ground once flushed from the pocket was the issue on D.
I got the feeling that they went conservative after their first drive of the second half because they knew the only way we get back into the game would be with turnover/special teams help. The clock was on their side so why not just run the ball and keep the clock ticking? If they get some first downs, great. If not, they kill the clock, limit our possessions, and remove any chance for a momentum changing pick (or pick six). If we had been able to score on their defense, I'm sure they wouldn't have let off the gas, but as it was I just feel Dabo was content to just smother us slowly the second half.
Agree. It wasn't kindness, it was strategy. Better a sure win than risk a loss to run up the score.
They didn't exactly put up a ton of rushing yards against us so I'm not sure why you think they could "run the ball to score any time they wanted".
One think I noticed all night was how the Clemson O kept making our D miss tackles while our guys got tackled as soon as someone touched them - no wiggle at all. Their D was much better at stopping at the initial point of contact than our guys were
Clemson seemed to play with a lot of "attack mode" while we seemed to be in a tentative frame of mind.
Their D was fast. Either they knew what the play was or they were that good. They were just there. Add in some of them dudes made some of ours look like dwarves, and that's tough.
Good team effort. Needed one or two more upper level players on offense to stretch the Clemson defense. Sure could have used those three guys who left earlier for the NFL.
Watch out for Miami in the future.
Great recruiting & a solid coach in Mark Richt.
Recent Miami coaches didn't utilize the talent as a team. Richt will.
Miami is currently out recruiting all ACC schools. For 2018 they have 13 commitments Grade 81 or better. Last year was a very strong year too for them, 10 signings of Grade 81 or better. For the same years we have 3 and 2 respectively. Yeah, I know, recruiting grades are not the final say, but they are a decent indicator.
Only problem is that Richt will find a way to fuck it up somehow. That's just what he does. Also we don't know how deep this FBI scandal goes in their Athletic department. With the Ponzy scheme from a few years ago and now this FBI thing, if the football program is tied in at all, some serious sanctions will fall on them.
FBI thing is valid, however, I don't want to be better than them because they were caught with a hand in the "cookie jar", I want to be better because we out recruit them because we have better coaches, facilities, and fans. Perhaps a pipe dream because Blacksburg (weather) < Miami, but that's the goal.
Agree, but Fuente/Foster > Mark Richt that's a for damn sure.
Agree 100%. I think we're on the same page.
Also we have better facilities then them AND the removal of the Orange Bowl as a collegiate stadium really hurt their program. They have no home field advantage anymore. I actually want Miami to be back, because it makes beating them that much more fun and our conference better. The rivalry sucks when they suck.
Eh Mark Richt had Georgia playing a lot better than Miami with similar talent levels. I think he mostly got fired because of the insane expectations in the SEC. He got close to SEC championships a few times, but Bama kind of got in the way of that.
He got fired because Mizzou won the east back to back years and they did nothing
I don't know. I watched some of that game against Dook and it seemed that the Miami players were talented but undisciplined. Lazy effort most of the time and Richt ready to stroke out, This is his second year and I see no positive change in attitude.
According to Eshiben5 hurricanes are uncontrollable and the European model (always the most accurate) predicts continued chaos.
Yea the highlight of that one asshat who got an interception off an athletically tipped ball by a teammate and immediately ripped off his helmet (which should have drawn a penalty) to get that ridiculous "turnover necklace" perfectly sums up their culture and attitude. Don't go congratulate/celebrate with your teammate who actually made an impressive play. All their players care about is the "swag." They aren't so much a team as a collection of talented individuals who can't see beyond the tip of their own nose. Richt has done nothing to change it.
It worked there before, and can definetly work there again. Richt is the type of guy that would all his guys to act like assholes like the Old Miami.
My thoughts on the three who went for the NFL... Hypothetically, with more talented depth on our roster when they arrived, this would only have been their second year as full time starters, and they'd probably still be here. Might be why we have trouble keeping the talented ones to senior year. Instead of developing future stars as backups first, they are immediately started as freshman and sophomores to fill holes.
With more depth of talent, this would fix itself.
meh...1-31. I'm used to it.
Can I just say, now that I've had my coffee and am more coherent, I'm very impressed with the lack of panic or despair in this thread. I avoided TKP last bight after the game for fear it would be a salt mine. This thread is full of level headed assessment. Well done. This is TKPing done right.
Moving forward, I fully believe the Coastal division is within our reach. We have faced the best defense we (and probably any other team) will face this season. Learn. Adjust. Move on.
Bring on BC.
Yeah I was pleasantly surprised. But it does feel like someone needs to hold down that camp so here goes:
We are so much worse than I thought.
We aren't going bowling this year.
Another game like that against LOLUVa and the streak is over!
BC is gonna eat out breakfast!
DOOM!! DOOM!!! DOOOOOOMMMM!
Fire Fuente!
Fire Foster!
Fire Beamer!
Bench Jackson, I want Click!
Clemson ain't played nobody and we still lost!
Miami is back and we're backsliding!
Rabble rabble rabble
Put in Leal
Maybe we will finally put in projected starter from the preseason: Kurt Benkert. I think he has a lot of potential.
I understand the reasoning behind the conservative playcalling(Screens/seeps), but I think we stuck with it way too long. At some point you have to take chances and go down the field. The few times we did, it seemed to work decently well. I think playing ultra conservative for too long of a time has been a problem in other games as well.
Also, the fake field goal was ridiculous.
Fuente admitted on Virginia Tech Sports Today that the fake field goal was his call. Really strange reasoning for it too. "I didn't want to kick, I didn't want to go for it, and I knew I couldn't punt." Just don't understand why you wouldn't give yourself the best chance at converting, which would mean putting your offense on the field. If it's picked off or short gain/incomplete, it has the same effect as a punt. Too late in the game to even think of kicking a field goal. Head scratching decision there.
I still think you kick it there. I believe we scored the punt return TD shortly after that possession. If we had just kicked it, it would have been 24-13 at that point. Going for it on 4th and 12 wasn't great but the fake FG was the worst possible decision.
Agreed. What's also weird is I found the offensive playcalling uncharacteristically easy to predict from my couch.
Before the game started I figured we'd do a lot of screens to work around the Clemson dline. Apparently Clemson figured as much, because they seemed to sniff those out every time. The fake punt also felt really predictable. In my mind we needed a touchdown in that moment to even think about the comeback, and a field goal just wasn't going to do it. So when the field goal unit came out I knew what was happening. Again, apparently so did Clemson.
Yeah, the fake punt didn't fool anybody.
Clemson sniffed that one out. They might as well have gone for it.
Out of curiosity, who did the Let's go chant after third quarter? did it energize the crowd?
Corey Moore did it. Great choice, poor timing. If the game situation had been different I think it would have been a great hype up for our boys. It wasn't terrible, but it definitely lacked some tenacity.
Agree he was a great choice but he didn't seem that into it. Although the score may have been part of that. It's really hard to lead a chant and not be self conscious.
I'm not sure if he actually knew he was supposed to start the "Let's Go" chant. He kinda stopped and waited for the cheerleaders to start before finally realizing he was supposed to lead it.
I think it's going to be a tough "tradition" to keep fresh. I kind of think they should just let the cheerleaders do it.
Speaking of which, I felt terrible for the High Techs: they had to perform at the lowest ebb of the emotional tide. When we scored about half-way through the 4th Q I turned to my wife and said they should let the High Techs come back out and do their routine again.
I liked the part where they never gave up.
I need someone to enlighten me as to why Coleman Fox isn't getting more snaps and getting them earlier in the game. I just looked at the stats from last night and wasn't surprised at all when I saw he lead the team in rushing. I know size is probably a factor, but I think he made the most of his touches last night and more importanly he was running with conviction. So.... why in the heck is his playtime been limited to mop-up 4th quarter duty?
He is probably the 5th string RB for a reason man. He has had plenty of time to separate himself in practice and he clearly hasn't. He last two games he has played against the 2nd/3rd/4th string defenses. I have constantly heard to trust the coaching staff throughout the past two years. So we lose one game against the best team in the country and all of a sudden we question their judgement?
I would like everyone to read this 5 times and then repeat after me:
We are going to be okay. Corn, Bud and Fu know what they are doing.
We are a young team, mistakes happen, the future is bright.
Enjoy the ride guys. It was an incredible weekend and a GREAT atmosphere last night. Not many programs get to experience what we have experienced through the Beamer era and now the transition.
I'm not a coach, so yes I'm inclined to trust the coaches. I also trust my eyes, and Coleman just seemed to be able to find space last night where everyone else wasn't. I'm sure size is a huge part of why isn't getting more snaps, but at some point I would think it just has to be accepted at the chance to break some big plays.
The other RBs weren't running against the 2nd/3rd string defense, so hole will be larger and closing speed will be slower. I'm sure McMillian would have been just as effective and probably even more so in that situation.
One telling moment for me was a play where Coleman caught an easy screen play, and a seemingly annoyed Clemson defender just grabbed him with both hands and pulled him into the sideline like he weighed as much as a paper doll.
He's a small guy, probably not built to run into the teeth of ACC level defenders, much less all-American level guys like we went up against last night.
I immediately thought of this figurine they used to sell at the bookstore when I saw that play. Hopefully one day the big guy will actually be wearing a VT uniform instead of Clemson one.
I would also have a lot of concerns about him picking up a linebacker blitz due to his size
Probably not capable of blocking at a level we need to utilize our full offense.
For the same reason you don't see Etienne in earlier. Skilled position blocking is a huge part of this offense and the same is true for Clemson. VT shutdown the Etienne machine because with him in the game there was a higher probability of Bryant getting hit. Our D was too fast for Etienne to do what he did to BC.
Hope Fuente and the boys are recruiting their ass off this weekend. That's the only ceiling for our program. Need to bring in some gamebreakers and seriously beef up our lines with more blue chips, at least on D. I'm nervous about this class being skill position heavy. When Tim and Rick leave I shudder at a dline that relies on Hewitt.
Shout out to Hokie nation for the turnout this week. Media and r/cfb well acknowledged that our gameday was the best turnout in a while and our fans did a great job staying in the game even though we were out of it. Future is bright if we capitalize on the right things.
I mean, didn't we pick up a ton of talented dlineman in the last class? It'll just take a bit for those guys to bulk up enough for the college game.
Picked up some good potential overall I think but mostly on the ends. Great defenses start on the interior. That means bringing in DTs that don't need 2 years to bulk up. DTs that are natural at the position. More Tims. More blue chips. I know its easier said than done, but its where we need to improve to see the biggest improvement on D IMO.
Tim is in 3rd year. Took him 3 years to be a full time player. Hard to find guys on both lines ready to compete high level day 1
Tim was a good player last year. There was not a dropoff when he came in. We have a big second team DT dropoff right now due to poor recruiting.
BTW, I was watching Settle the whole game: he only came off the field to make way for the dime package, and he did not appear to wear down at all. There was one play where he sprinted all the way across the field trying to run Bryant out of bounds, and he played the rest of the series without missing a beat. Whatever conditioning program he has been on, he has apparently worked hard as hell at it.
I was really happy to see the improved TV coverage of pre-game/Enter Sandman.
This was the first time I thought the media coverage really captured the mood and didn't cut it off. Nothing better than Enter Sandman for a night game.
This was a tough matchup, and I appreciate that the coaches really did pull out all the stops to try and win it. I think everything would have had to go our way in order to win this one, and it really didn't. I was expecting Bryant to make a mistake at some point. He was under pressure, but Clemson did a good job of turning that around and getting some yardage out of it. That is one fast QB.
I'm glad VT didn't give up. In spite of the miscues, I saw some fight in them through the 4th quarter. This is a good team. If they improve a bit, maybe they'll get a rematch for the ACC Championship.
Anyone know why visiting bands are now in the upper corner of east stands?
Money? Those look like they would be cheap seats.
Because that's where other teams put visitors?
Just FYI, Clemson puts visitors in the lower bowl right by the field in Death Valley.
Being able to sell lower tickets to fans and more opponents are doing same to Marching Virginia's.
I don't know why they are there but I can't say I hate it. Hearing that C-L-E-M-S-O-N cheer from field level would have been annoying. I could hardly hear them from the West stands and I wasn't complaining.
Oh believe it, it was loud and clear in the SEZ. I don't actually mind Clemson's fans, as we did the same thing in Columbus.
... and it's actually C-L-E-M-S-O-(we don't have an eighth letter but there are eight beats)-N
I'm pretty sure one of those times I heard C-L-E-M-O-N.
...spite.
The same reason every other stoppage in play is filled with some sort of corporate sponsored gimmick on HokieVision. $. And I am not a big fan of it.
It makes some sense for opponent bands, but they also stuck the regional HS band up there for the week they all played with ours at halftime.
It comes off as petty. We haven't done this in the past. It's not like that corner in the SEZ is the most desirable place in the world, but at least they're present.
I don't think Tech has price ranges for a game like that. All tickets, no matter where, were being sold for $110 face value. Whether the band was at field level in SEZ or way up in east stands, Tech would see no difference financially.
2 things. The space where the bands used to sit could be bought by someone in their season ticket purchase if they wanted this year. Two Clemson and all away teams are given a clock of tickets which includes the band. If Clemson wanted their band closer to the field they could have put them in front of their other fans farther down in 19.
That still leads to the question of why Tech decided to no longer offer up that space in south for the bands. I stand by what I said.
Because donors can buy it as seats now.
Yeah, I read what you said. But my point is that VT made a conscious decision to render that spot not available for bands by making that area available to donors.
The real question is: Why should the opposing band get field-level seats?
"That's where they've always been" is not an acceptable reason
Because it doesn't make us look like jerks and it adds to a cool environment.
I really enjoy the fact that opposing fans enjoy coming to Lane because:
A) The environment is one of the best in CFB and
B) They appreciate being treated well and respected
I guess I don't think doing something that most of our opponents already do makes us look like jerks or effects the visiting fans' enjoyment of the game/environment in any way
You can think that. There isn't a right or wrong answer here. We just have different opinions on how it should be handled.
In reading through r/CFB and many other non-Hokie biased sources last week, so many people were excited to watch this game because of the environment in Lane and because of the respect they all have for Hokie fans. That's something that I think we've earned by not just being the team that puts the band in nosebleeds. Many Clmson fans were excited for this game because they wanted to experience a game of that caliber in Lane Stadium and they knew they could have a fun day tailgating and enjoying the atmosphere of Blacksburg on game day without the worry of being harassed just for rooting for a different school.
That has always meant a lot to me and I think we are recognized as a leader in CFB in that regard. So yeah...to me at least it matters where we put the visiting team band.
Maybe there's a slippery slope I'm not aware of and moving the band is a serious gateway dick-move, but moving the band probably doesn't change who Hokie Nation is or who we will continue to be
I always thought UNC were a bunch of jerks for sticking the MVs up in the corner nosebleeds in their empty stadium. Keep in mind I'm talking about the only school I've ever heard boo the opposing band as they took the field for a military appreciation show.
UVA does it too. "Everyone else does it" isn't an acceptable answer either when we're talking about these places.
Also have you tried carrying a large hunk of brass up those switchbacks in the East Stands? As much as I loathe the killing of the Hokie Pokie, this re-seating of opponents bands probably would have hurt the experience anyways, as no tuba players are gonna make that trip to join in the fun.
Clemson could have the band much closer to the field if they wanted.
I'm confused are people paying $ to hear bands play 20 seconds of awful sounding music snippets or to watch a top ACC Game?
Clemson can afford to put the bands lower level because they have a capacity of 81,500..
Yeah, part of my $ is to hear the COLLEGE marching bands that helps to distinguish the COLLEGE football game from the crap I can watch on Fox Sunday afternoon. Instead I get karaoke Enter Sandman (which was dumb) and the Smithfield Sizzle.
But is putting them in the nosebleeds actually our decision, or could they have just put them in the very front of their allocated seats in Section 19?
Not to brag or anything, I carry a large chunk of brass everywhere I go.
Did anyone else notice that the teams was huddling up on some plays, and JJ was going to the sideline to get the call? I had never noticed them huddle this year or last year. Makes one wonder if Clemson really is stealing signals from teams.
I immediately thought "wow, was that a stolen signal?" on that bubble screen where it looked like Clemson knew the call before we did.
Ok so take what you want with this information but on account of all the comparisons between VT and Clemson I just wanted to share some of Clemson's records in the seasons surrounding Dabo taking over.
2005 // 8-4 // Bowden
2006 // 8-5 // Bowden
2007 // 9-4 // Bowden
2008 // 7-6 // ( 3-3 Bowden) (4-3 Dabo)
2009 // 9-5 // Dabo
2010 // 6-7 // Dabo
2011 // 10-4 // Dabo
And then he has won at least 10 games a season since then.
Can't believe I'm going to have to type this after what a huge stage that was last night.
Talked to a Clemson fan today from down here who went to the game. Don't know them outside kids school. He said Blacksburg was great, fans were nice BUT
Yep the THIRD Thing a Clemson fan talked to me about was people throwing paper airplanes! WTF kind of bush league fans were there throwing paper airplanes at this kind of game? It's embarrassing.
We're having fun. They give us paper tickets, we're going to make paper airplanes. I don't see anything wrong with it, and the administration obviously doesn't either if they haven't sent out an email, enforced a "no paper airplane" or even taken away paper ticketing.
Students have fun at games in different ways than adults do. It's just how that works.
edit: And as a humble brag, my airplane made it to the field.
I know this is weird but your watching a football game why do you need things to have fun?
On average, an NFL game has 11 minutes of action. Maybe we give it a little bit more cause this is college and we go uptempo. So maybe 15 minutes?
I was in the stadium at 6:15 and the student section was full by 7. Game kicked at 8:21. Game ended at what? 11:45?
That's 4.5 hours filled with 15 minutes of watching a football game.
You have a valid points. And the airplanes don't really bother me much. I guess when I was a student we were too busy drinking in the student section to bother with other forms of entertainment. Times change, I get it.
Personally, my issue is that I consider it rude and inconsiderate. 99% of airplanes do not make the field so they are falling in the crowd and hitting people. Risk of freak injury aside, this only happens because people can't tell who hit them with the projectile. If it were anything else and people could actually figure out who hit them, people would get thrown out. Try throwing things at people a row or two in front of you and see how long you last in the stadium.
I get that these things happen at games and I don't see them as some major issue. But that's just my personal issue with it.
I can't drink so I have to entertain myself somehow (insert shrugging man emoji here)
Yep, nobody every did cup worms in your day. Please.
I'm not sure of two things....what a cup worm is and your point.
It's that sort get off my lawn attitude that lead to Stick It In getting axed. It is a college campus, you are going to see college kids do college kid like things.
Not wanting to get hit by a thrown object or see the home team get a penalty when one lands on the field of play isn't the same as seeing Stick it in banned. It's amazing I've been to games at OSU, ND, Duke, Richmond, Pitt, numerous bowl games and 2 ACCCG games and you know what I didn't see there paper airplanes get thrown.
Yeah, if you're bored, you can always talk to girls or watch the game.
when we were bored, we'd always see how many people we could get to join a chant/cheer. Old Hokie, let's go hokies, whatever. Just try to keep people amped even while the tv timeout ref was on the field. But yeah, hitting people in the head with paper airplanes, that's cool too, I guess...
Talk to friends, get food or drink, sit and look at sights, Hell I watched a kid do homework during the anOSU game.
Courtesy of this site...
Aren't Tech students for the most part adults? Just wondering.
I'm sure they are, but the student section is a different environment than what alums sit in.
Is this why everything is going electronic now??? Darn millennials can't stop making paper airplains so we have to take away their paper!!! /s
I will agree in that I'm shocked they still give paper tickets. That started while I was there and after the first few games of the announcer having to say we'd be penalized if another one got on the field I thought for sure that would be the end of the paper idea.
I actually cant stand the paper airplanes. I get pissed everytime I see a Hokie get hit in the back of the head with one of those things, BUT, I guess it's better than the 3 Dasani water bottles that got hurled from the stands onto the field and at the Clemson sideline. Pretty sad if ya ask me!!
"I don't see anything wrong with it"
Think of it this way, the vast majority of the paper airplanes do not reach the field. Most land in the stands, meaning that they hit people. So when you throw a paper airplane you are basically just throwing something at a random stranger. Why is it cool or fun to just throw shit at people? It's a total dick-move. Would you walk across the Drillfield just chucking paper balls or paper airplanes at random people? It is the same principle, except in the stands, you rarely, if ever, have to face the person that you just hit. Yes, they are made of paper, but that doesn't mean that they never hurt or never annoy the shit out of someone who is just trying to enjoy a Tech game. I guess your fun is just more important than the people who aren't throwing things at fellow Hokies.
The real question is, "Do you think it is funny when a paper airplane hits someone?"
Maybe all those nice people filming on their iPhones would help identify culprits? /s
If that's his biggest complaint about his Lane experience I'd say we did alright.
He had a few small other ones but they were more opinion things. But come on paper airplanes at a football game of Top 12 teams in a P5 conference it's sad that students need to find something to entertain themselves.
Given how loud Lane was last night I'm not sure it's so much a "we need to entertain ourselves" thing as much as "I bet I can make a plane fly farther than yours." Also, during the TV timeouts there wasn't much to do, so I can see folding a quick plane or two. To me it's no biggie, but I get it bugs other people. At least we aren't woovoo and throwing batteries and bags of piss...
It's possible we need a better standard to be better than.
thats incredibly infuriating. the paper airplanes must stop.
... just saying ... At least the paper airplanes can all get picked up
via GIPHY
This topic has been covered quite thoroughly on TKP. Funny how it wasn't ever brought up before we started struggling in Beamer's last few years and I haven't seen it brought up this year until our first loss.
The people you're complaining about, for the most part, don't read this site. I'm no fan of them either but they're blown waaaayyy out of proportion IMO. Let it go, or write a strongly worded letter to someone and maybe the VT Ath. Dept. will decide to put a stop to it.
First article written about on a news site , Collegiate paper, was 2009. So not ideal Hokie football but still a good year.
Been here since '08, which I believe was the first year season tickets were on paper (someone correct me if I'm wrong). I never once saw a paper airplane until an embarrassing Thursday night loss. I don't even remember which one anymore. Maybe '09 vs UNC? I think it's telling that their debut came after an embarrassing loss.
Paper airplanes, like the wave, show that the fans are bored by the action and need ways to make it fun again. They are a sign that people have stopped caring about the action on the field.
Paper airplanes were going on in the early 90's. But pizza boxes and cups were the nemesis projectile. If you'd been hit with one of those, you wouldn't give a rip about some little paper airplane.
Side note to the recruiting and coaching....CJF's first class are true freshman.
I'm sure Yoda said it somewhere....patience. Maybe it was axel rose.
Well you know what they say, "if you can't be part of the solution, be part of the problem." Oh wait, no one says that...
Well considering that I don't think there's a problem, I'm not trying to be part of a solution.
It's only a problem when the paper airplane gets too big.
Otherwise, what's the big deal?
Hard to defend throwing projectiles and being happy somebody else will clean it up. Not the end of the world but not on the list of great ideas either.
I'm old enough to turn down the volume and yell at kids to get off my lawn but the paper airplanes have never really bothered me. For the record though, I don't turn down the music.
Then you must be fortunate enough to be in the west stands. They started Saturday night 60 minutes before the game.
The unfortunate part was that several landed on, or at the feet of, this one family of Clemson fans. They didn't know that this is normal, so the wife was very angry and thought they were being kamikazed.
Now that is an unfortunate impression. If they thought they were the target of paper airplanes because they were visiting fans, I can see why they would complain. I graduated the year Beamer came back to Blacksburg, but if the media timeouts got any longer I would be looking for ways to entertain myself, too. That's the real culprit here, as Mr. Skutt pointed out. Sitting three hours to watch 40 minutes of action is one thing. Stretching it to a fourth hour so they can sell more Dr. Pepper is another.
Nah, the real culprit are the people who need to be constantly entertained or they'll start throwing stuff at other patrons.
Attention spans have shrunk, which is why there are games on smart phones. There are ways to keep yourself entertained without interfering with other people's enjoyment of the venue or ability to watch the game. Nobody likes other people throwing stuff at them.
Just got around to watching the televised version of Sandman from last night. ESPN really didn't capture the electricity in Lane at all, IMHO. They tried, but television just cannot do justice to what it was like in the trenches for that pregame.
The best they ever did IMO was from a UNC game a few years ago.
Another point I forgot above. Tim Settle is a big time player. Imo, he might be only one that rose to their level last night. Hopefully he carries this momentum forward.
I'm not so mad about the outcome. I am very disappointed in the amount of Clemson fans there. I was in section 19 five rows off the field and was surrounded. It sucked. They were generally nice though. A couple of the trashy ones got into it with some of our trashy fans and had to be held back but their friends did a good job of telling them to be respectful. But it was pretty miserable hearing them all game. They had every right too though. Just seemed like some Hokie fans were more interested in making money than supporting the team. I know some people have stuff come up and that's fine but it was a lot like OSU 15.
We lost the game when Slye missed the kick before halftime and then we fumbled when driving right after the 3 and out after halftime. If we make that kick and score on that drive I think we win. Every time we got momentum we squandered it.
Skydivers were dope as hell though. Absolutely spectacular.
I didn't find there were many Clemson fans there at all. They just packed in the visiting section and were incredibly loud with their chanting. Other than that, I didn't notice them at all, and from my vantage point, if you weren't in the visitor section and you had more than a couple in your vicinity, you were in the unlucky minority.
Section 19 was covered in Clemson fans, even the parts of 19 not dedicated to visitors. The southeast corner of SEZ was also covered. That's the best I've ever seen a visiting team travel.
Were you there for LSU or anOSU?
No. I'd say it had to be close to OSU in 2015 if not a little more looking at pics of that game.
Was at both games. I think there were more Ohio St fans in 2015 than Clemson fans this weekend. It's sneaky though, because a lot of the Clemson fans were either wearing jackets or orange, which makes it hard to pick out of a crowd as "oh that's an obvious Clemson fan". The C-L-E-M-S-O---N" chant was nowhere near as loud as the "O-H----I-O" chants in 2015 though.
Yeah they were a little harder to spot. If you look at pics they had 38 and 39 I think plus they came all the way down 19 and had the entire southeast corner of SEZ pretty much. Ohio State had all of 19 and 39 but I can't tell what else they had from pics.
It probably wasn't as loud because no one could hear Clemson's band where we were. So they were leading their own chants.
Either way both teams traveled well.
Yes. both teams traveled well. I was disappointed at the amount of Clemson fans in North Endzone too. Don't know how you get groups of 3-4 Clemson fans unaccompanied by a Tech student in the student section.
Wait really? I couldn't tell from where I was but yeah that's nuts.
There's always a handful of away fans that get into north with companion tickets, but I definitely saw a few little groups and pairs. Easily saw 20-25 clemson fans come in (not all together) from where I was in section G.
Of course I wish we pulled off the W but still yesterday was as great a game day experience as I've had. The atmosphere was electric. Clemson fans were friendly and VT and Clemson were hanging out together having a great time together. Lots of respect both ways for the teams. Lots of respect from Clemson fans for the town, the facilities (Beamer barn specifically), the friendliness of our fans, the energy of our fans, etc. All around a great day.
Just coming in, and haven't read through all the comments, but my thoughts...
Really thought the defense played well aside from a few plays that they shouldn't have let happen. Was most frustrated by Clemson TD drive right before halftime; Fayscon over-ran his man and got burned for extra yards, didn't even get a finger on him and then they bring in Adonis and he does the same thing on basically the same route. Otherwise, I thought the defense kept us in it and gave our team life.
G-Stro's return was gutsy as Hell, he had to run way up to catch that ball on the run. Major props.
I'm not that disappointed in the Offense. Honestly, that is just where we are talent-wise right now. Young and not very deep. We gave ourselves a couple chances to stay in it and make it a close finish, but kept falling short. That is just a young team against an outstanding defense.
Play calling was frustrating at times. The jet sweeps to CJ were mind-boggling. The WR screen to Murphy on the Pick-6, that late in the game, you have to press it down field. I give CornFu a major pass here, because they're working with a young group against the best D-Line in the country. That game is a whole lot closer without the turnovers.
As for Slye, I had a perfect view of the snap and hold. Snap was low, holder pinned the ball flat against the ground, managed to get it up and in place, but was clearly not well set. When that happens, it is not on Slye, it makes for weird contact and the ball to come off the ground unpredictably. I think it is a snapping issue more than anything else.
I hate that we cannot ever seem to win the big games. The WVU was nice, but this is the one we wanted, this is the one where we all could have said...FINALLY, and it would have felt so good. But as always, I will look forward to the next opportunity.
Also...Enter Sandman should be played 6 times a year in LAne, and that is it. If we play it 2, 3, 4+ times every game it will lose the novelty and effect. SIX TIMES...that's all folks!
I definitely agree on your point about Sandman...I think they are starting to overuse it to get a reaction from the crowd. It used to only be played for the intro and extremely critical moments in big games. Now we play it way too often, and I fear we are going to cheapen it.
Sandman karaoke is just like full on Sandman -- must be used at the proper time for the proper effect.
I mean, it was kind of cool at the end, with the "Exit Light, Enter Night" line coming right as Clemson was lining up to run their next play. However, it would have been more effective if we were leading, and if the other team was already rattled a bit.
Wait wait wait...I wasn't at the game, they played Enter Sandman near the end of the game?
What the fuck? Why are we cheapening our traditions? First hokie pokie is shoved out then this? Enter Sandman should ONLY be used before kickoff and then maybe in a situation like 2011 Miami.
Damnit what's going on in Blacksburg with our traditions.
Just like they wedge Let's Go Hokies at a standard time now. Used to be done more on an "as needed" basis rather than an "always needed" basis.
It wasn't a full on Sandman like 2011 Miami or even an entrance. It was a trimmed version that started right before the words that was used for the karaoke entertainment bit.
And it was in the first half.
Let's wait and see how WVU does in conference play before we dismiss that win as "nice."
Agree with most but I'm pretty sure the pick 6 wasn't a screen.
I was one of those buttheads who gave Stroh a very hard time about his decision-making last year, especially early in the season. As a punt returner, he has been the most improved player on the team.
I thought we actually played pretty well. We held our own. The fumble and the pick six were huge. Also the missed field goal. Make that and we probably kick the other field goal.
If's and buts and whatnot, but I don't think the gap between us and Clemson is as much as people make it out to be. Yes they are elite. We are very good though and a ball bounces another way on another day, and the national perception of that game is much, much different.
I am sure. everything I say has alreaady been said but here goes my 2 cents. Overall, I think we played well, not well enough to win but not bad. Observations; we are not dbu, there were many times our guys were beat biut the ball was overthrown. Our linebackers are a work in progress and until we fix that, we will continue to give up QB draw plays and RB's out of the backfield. Offense play calling needs to be adjusted at some point during the game, not wait until half-time. And finally we are just not "Ready for Prime Time", we don't have the horses yet to compete at the Cleemson level. We are improving but we have a long way to go, but it's all good and we will get there.
Sad to say, but I agree with this. There is not a single elite pass defender in our backfield right now. I don't know whether to put it down to recruiting or coaching.
I like Brian Mitchell but he is no Torrian Gray.
there will never be another DBU... the way college football has evolved to the spread offense+RPO defenses will continue to get shredded.
My thread observations:
1. Just because posters voice their concerns DOES NOT MEAN that they have a "fire everyone" or "sky is falling" attitude. This is a thread allowing everyone to voice their pleasure/displeasure with the game, and the repeated "calm down" posts are not contributing anything
2. The sky isn't falling. Don't fire everyone
I think the sky is falling. We should fire people.
But not everyone. Just the ones responsible for holding up the sky.
The offensive scheme seemed tentative. But really, we were just physically outmatched. I have my comments on the playcalling but I'm not sure it would've mattered.
Moving on I think we still have a really good team. We aren't the first, or the last, team that this Clemson group is going to stifle. The Coastal is still very much on the table and we will have all the more experience if we get a rematch in the ACC CG.
JJ got a ton of valuable experience and film to learn from. This can only help him. I'm really interested to see how we play after this game against a tricky BC team on the road.
The crowd and atmosphere all day were awesome. Hokie Nation did not let anyone down. I'm happy we had a game like that. Obviously wish we could've won it, but I'm confident that this staff will get a lot more games like that in Blacksburg.
Go Hokies!
We can nitpick a few plays here and there, but at the end of the day, the Clemson game was a good, humbling benchmark for our program. We are not where we want to be, and when we go up against a really good team, if we aren't absolutely perfect, we will get rolled when they play sound. That's not a bad thing to know, and there are areas (depth, execution, experience) where we know improvement will pay off down the line. The good thing is, I have all the faith in the world this staff will fix these problems, and it won't be long until we are holding our own within and winning these super high profile games. All this past week showed is that we've been punching a little above our weight class right now, and the room for improvement is there.
The only thing that really worries me heading into the future, is the slow starts offensively in our games. I know we use the first few possessions to really set up the playcalling for the remainder of the game, but there has to be a way for us to still be able to move the ball when we're doing that. Against teams like Georgia Tech where possessions come at a premium while the game is shortened, we can't afford wasted opportunities. Last year proved that, and my worry is that we're going to annually have that game on the schedule where our style plays right into their strength.
Not knocking
BlackburnBradburn, but...JACK CLICK FOR KICK HOLDER!!!
edit: thanks for the catch. Damn autocorrect.
I was thinking the same thing...why not Click? He has to have better hands, and having him back there increases the percentages of a trick play working.
This... So much. Slye is getting blamed for missing a lot when he has a lot of bad holds (could be snapper as well).
Oscar Bradburn
$20 says that's autocorrect for you. It simply will not accept Bradburn as a name on my iphone.
I had a dream last night that we lost to UVA 51-31. Everyone can start freaking out now.
There's no way that UVA scores more points on us than fans at their spring game...
You sure it was just a dream...?
They got doubled up by Indiana. Breathe.
I just want to give props to anyone else in Section 2/surrounding areas who also didn't murder the Clemson lady by herself screaming "YEAH BRICK WALL, CLEMSON!" at their defense in the 4th when they had clearly already gone prevent and were up by 21
Same goes for those in section 9. Maybe it was the same Clemson lady, screaming with 5 minutes left in the 4th
Opposite side of the stadium, but sorry to hear there was more than one. Otherwise, the Clemson fans I interacted with were great
I've got a question (which was asked previously). Keep seeing all these comparisons and contrasts of our team NOW, and Clemson back in 2011. So, is our squad, just the team, NOT the athletic contributions (already know the answer to that) on the level that Clemson was when they emasculated us twice back in '11??
More similarities than differences. That wasn't a bad Clemson team, but it had some critical weaknesses, and it got emasculated 70-33 by WVU in the Orange Bowl.
If we have a similar trend in recruiting that they did, I don't see why we can't become a college football superpower as well.
Clemson had some crazy offensive talent (Sammy Watkins, DeAndre Hopkins, Tajh Boyd, Dwayne Allen) and a new OC in Chad Morris who brought in a spread scheme that people hadn't really seen on that stage yet. However, they had a very suspect defense that cost them a few games and got them annihilated against WVU.
I feel like we are a bit behind where they were from an offensive talent perspective in 2011, but we have the coaches and scheme to be effective. I think we are far better off than they were defensively, however. We need more gamebreakers on offense, period. Continuing to recruit elite talent will help us build in the right direction, but the big question is whether or not we can get to Clemson's level in recruiting.
I think defensively we are now where they were offensively back in 2011. They needed to get better on defense and we need to get better on offense. We have some top line offensive players coming in, but more importantly, we need depth, just like they did back then.
But yes, the biggest hinderance towards us and where we want to be is recruiting. We have the coaching to be good, we just need the players and the depth to execute at a high level for all 60 minutes of the game. This past week showed we still have work to do, and the proof will be on how well we can capitalize on the recruiting weekend we just had.
It's becoming apparent how big a loss Farley was this year. I know he was super raw, but he was the best player on the field at the Spring Game. Also it seems like James Clark has some sort of hand injury which was keeping him out on Saturday. He was starting to emerge for us, and I hope he can get back to action soon.
We need Farley, Turner, Hazelton, and Simmons to step up big time for us next year. I feel like that will be a significant infusion of skill talent. I'm also curious if we can transition Bush over to receiver next year if it looks like Hooker/Patterson will overtake him at QB. We need that athleticism on the field for us.
Exactly, the answer to this all comes down to recruiting. The proof will be in the pudding (cue Bill Cosby gif) in two to three years.
Three things I learned from the Clemson game.
1. My day drinking game is a LOT stronger now that I'm older. When I was in Blacksburg back in the late 80's, there were many times that I had to pack it in early because of pacing errors. On Saturday I started drinking at 10:00 am and didn't finish until after 2:00 am, all the while maintaining a very confident 3-beer buzz and very little hangover to boot. #strongeldergame
2. Jedi patience pays off when trying to score a ticket to anything. When normal connections fall through, I usually resort to scrounging tickets on Craigslist. Throughout the week, posters were offering tickets for over twice face value. Several times my reasonable counteroffers were rebuffed, quite resoundingly I might add, with replies to the effect of, "You're crazy if you think you're going to get a ticket for under $150." To all of you guys who were so kind to fill me in on this, I scored two for $200 total at around 5:30pm on Saturday. #greedisgoodbutsoisleonard
3. R-E-L-A-X. We're going to be ok. Nobody needs to be fired, the offensive line looks better than it has in years, and we've got the makings of a cold-blooded killer at QB. #we'llbeseeingyouagainrealsoondabo
We played like a young team that wasn't ready for the moment.
Clemson definitely outclasses with regards to talent.
The coaching should be equal, but I feel we got out-coached on Saturday night.
Not sure what the screens and dive runs were setting up but they were completely ineffective.
The fake FG was obvious. Clemson new it was coming. Joey Slye had to hit those FGs that he missed.
The defense played well, but had the bad coverage bust and missed tackles. The missed tackles looked like nerves or an athleticism disadvantage.
For a program in need of signature moment, the team failed to seize the moment.
The one positive that did come through was that Josh Jackson was not overwhelmed, even though he missed some throws and the team played hard all the way through even when it was clear that Clemson was going to win. The compete level was there. Execution was inconsistent. Coaching was inconsistent.
Long term, I'm not sure how Fuente has VT improve its recruiting to get more 4-5 star players. But that's what needs to happen if we are going to move into the contender tier of CFB teams.
This was the first time that our coaching staff, with the exception of Bud and Wiles, had participated in a game of this magnitude. Experience certainly made a huge difference there, and I'd expect that Cornelson and Fuente will learn a few things from Saturday to use down the road.
Holy hell, finally watching the TV replay of the game since I was there. ESPN needs to do some housecleaning in their fact checking department. "Justin Fuente played at Oklahoma and then transferred to Frank Beamer's alma mater, Murray State!" I know Fowler and Herbstreit are probably just reading from a prompter, but geez, I think I would have enough sense to say nope, that's wrong.
Just like VT's "2nd ever" 4-0 start graphic that I saw in the USC/Wazzou game.
Atmosphere was awesome. We got beat in a game that would have been winnable if not for the turnovers. We were the team that couldn't afford to make sloppy mistakes, and we did, simple as that. I believe we can win a rematch with them (we obviously have to get there first), but I don't know if we will.